Monthly Archives: January 2009

Time to relax, and enjoy the weekend for all it is worth. We’ll be finishing up the final touches on Vampire Campfire which sounds absolutely amazing right now, me being a might bit biased. Check out some live music in your area, or maybe a new movie.

The people that know me know that I love Peanut Butter Cups through and through. Hoover likes to make fun of me for my extreme love, and Heavy has pointed it out on numerous occasions. One can tell a PBC lover by the fact that by buying one, you are missing out on so much that a regular chocolate bar has and yet you just don’t seem to mind.

The problem being the medium for the chocolate covered peanut butter. In cup form you are limited to three (four in bonus packs!) thin layers of chocolate with the delicious filling inside. I’ve often imagined a better format, but not being a chocolateer myself I never put much creative thought into it.

But now they have done a great thing! A chocolate bar in the style of Caramilk, or Aero but with Reese’s delicious chocolate and peanut butter combined!!! It’s more (I wasn’t used to eating so much that I almost couldn’t) chocolate around the filling and more filling to enjoy.

So go down to the ol confectionary and pick one up before the limited edition ends…I hope that dark day never comes.

Peace,Love&GoodVibesSnowDove,ArmsUp

p.s.”Underground” is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters “und.”

A little late here, but better late than never they say. I hope everyone is having a great week and has kept in mind that the weekend is so close at hand. Today I want to regale you with a story of my weekend shopping trip to the record shoppe. It went well in the end but read read read and you shall find out the pitfalls of my adventures.

First is my discovery. I found a wonderful 50th anniversary Kind of Blue set, unfortunately it was $120 which is just too much money for me to be spending on a record I’ve heard 8 million times.

Secondly are my purchases. Simon and Garfunkel Concert in the Park, and the entire collection of Chopin’s nocturnes. It has to be said again and again. Classical music is so damn cheep to buy on vinyl. 8 bucks for three records of great music.

Now for the terrible downfall of my trip, though I have convinced myself that I was the victor. While searching through the Simon and Garfunkel records I discovered the aforementioned Concert in the Park and decided that I should like to own it and a warm fuzzy feeling grew in my heart. It was quickly and ruthlessly dashed by the comment of my neighboring shopper.

“You don’t have that record? I had it when I was in grade 10” came his snarky voice through my elation.

“Well I’m just as impressed with you as I was before you spoke…Congratulations” was the best that I could come up with but it worked for the situation.

I’ll rant on beginners and jackasses in a future post but for now enjoy life and the closeness of the weekend.

Peace,Love&GoodVibesSnowDove,ArmsUp

p.s. The word “set” has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

Today we have to talk about the new genre name. To put the situation in a nutshell the band has decided that to purposefully market ourselves we need create a name for OUR sound. Three months ago or more we would have, and did, tack two bands together to describe our sound. We called our music something like “Weezer suckerpunching the Pixies” and to be quite honest we had elements of both bands in a situation much like that. The idea came from Nirvana mainly who made similar claims in an attempt to name their sound.

The problem that we found with combining bands is that we are influenced by many different bands and the listener might not even hear any of those bands in our music. For instance we all love the Beatles (if you hadn’t noticed) yet our music doesn’t sound anything like them. So we have decided to create a name for our genre. Just like Rock and Roll took its name from the very depths of AfroAmerican blues (Rocking meant to shake up and cause trouble) and Grunge came from the idea of the music being dirty and against the rock culture we now need a name that will give the listener something to connect to.

I’m hoping that next week we might get Heavy to write up a review blog about some iphone apps he might have. Since I don’t have an iphone myself I guess I’m going to have to talk ipods.

Last week while I was shopping round the itunes store I decided to take a look through the games section. For the most part the games aren’t really that good. I like my ipod to be a music carying device rather than cluttered up with games, movies and pictures. But since I have a whole bunch more space I thought I might indulge in one game if I could find something cooler than cards.

Luckily for me I found a game I played when computers were still a silly toy that only a few people owned. The Indiana Jones style Lode Runner. Essentially you are a treasure hunter placed in some diabolical puzzles with strange robots trying to keep you away from the treasure. Ladders, gold, robots, digging holes to trap robots and get to the hidden treasure. Its a good game if ever there was one.

So on the ipod…the game lacks immesurably.

1. The controls are impossible to get a hold of. Touch one side of the click wheel and you move that way. Click that side and you dig a hole and then since your finger is still on the wheel you end up falling into your own hole. I’m still struggling a week after starting.

2. The music can’t be changed. I’ve got 12GB of music on my ipod and I have to listen to the awful synth video game music over and over.

Well I’m excited right now. Very excited indeed. Coming out of my headphones is the updated, new and improved Vampire Campfire. It is in it’s first mix so don’t expect it to come to you anytime soon. We’re picky when it comes to our music and that means things will get re-done and you will be assured of its perfection.

So last week we went to the studio to finish up Vampire and I talked about vocals. I noticed while we were in there that our vocals have improved tenfold. It was only a month before that we were struggling to sing harmonies and gang vocals behind Midnight Choirs and now we’re just sailing along.

Tomorrow we have a practice at Vangelli’s where we will be performing every Wednesday in February. I will keep ya’ll posted but I think showtime is at 8 or 8:30 every Wed with comedy acts in between ArmsUp sets. We’ve got a couple of new songs that have been worked out and we’d love your opinion on them.

The weather is hopefully going to get warmer this week, though I think the political weather is going to get quite fridgid with the ol’ budget speach coming out tomorrow. Money or no, the music will go on.

We’ve been writing a lot of new songs in our cozy jam space. It has many christmas lights pinned around posters of our favourite artists. The Beatles, Hendrix, Zeppelin, they’re all there, but the one that is missing is Woody Guthrie.

Woody was the most popular train car hopper in all the land. He inspired Dylan to get writing and lately he’s been seeping into our writing. Lyrics about destiny, fate, risk and rewards are all shining through in these new songs. At least one of those songs will be premiered at our shows that are coming up in February. If your in the area stop by.

Although the winter is still in full swing, I can’t help but feel that spring time is just around the corner and with it comes new beginnings and an ARMSUP tour. We’re getting ready to head out in May. Western Canada, maybe California, maybe.

Either way Train Car Hopping is in the air and Woody Guthrie is pushing us on. Oh Random Sunday thoughts how I appreciate thee.

The temperature has dropped again and the wind is back, friendly messages from the weather that winter is still a force to be reckoned with. A couple of things before we get into the main section here. If you are in Saskatoon this weekend Friday night at Louis’ Pub there will be a fantastic showing of Saskatoon and Regina bands. Saturday at Amigos the Sheepdogs and keeping it in the family, The Keepers will be playing a rockin show.

But here we go on some review shtuff. Voyno was amazed and appalled at what I’m about to share with ya’ll. It goes with the vocal harmonies I was pushing a couple of days ago and it blew my mind to find out about the other side of a band I thought I’d never like…

The Bee Gees. Now I thought I would never like the disco boys because of their terribly high fallsettos (fallsetti?) and ridiculously soulless music. But I was digging through some records and I found a greatest hits album from the late 60s. I wondered what they were doing before disco? How could this all fit in together?

Like magic.

So much actual soul is in this music that I couldn’t believe it was the same band.